Funding deadline tests GOP strategy

Monday

Apr 17, 2017 at 10:08 AMApr 17, 2017 at 10:09 AM

By Lindsey McPherson CQ-Roll Call (TNS)

WASHINGTON — When Republicans kicked the fiscal 2017 spending deadline into April last December, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said they’d rather negotiate with incoming GOP President Donald Trump than the outgoing Democratic one.

But now, congressional Republicans are talking about largely ignoring requests from the White House as they negotiate with Democrats over a spending bill to take the government off autopilot for the remaining five months of the fiscal year.

This dynamic demonstrates the state of the GOP in Washington: a party struggling to figure out how to use their “unified” government to implement the policy ideas they pitched during the campaign.

Infighting has long plagued the party, particularly in the House where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. But that has amplified now that they find themselves in a governing position, with control of Congress and the White House.

The continuing resolution that has maintained government funding is set to expire April 28. Both chambers of Congress are currently out for the Easter recess, scheduled to return just days before the funding deadline — April 24 for the Senate, April 25 for the House. That leaves little time for intraparty squabbles or across-the-aisle horse trading over whatever bill congressional leaders produce.

Political and policy differences between conservative and moderate factions that prevented House Republicans from moving forward with legislation to partially repeal and replace and the 2010 health care law — one of their top campaign promises — could also cause strife over the government funding bill.

“It’s a giant problem because anything Republicans in the House really want has to go through eight Democratic senators,” said Joshua Huder, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, referring to Democratic support needed to get over the Senate’s 60-vote procedural threshold.

“There’s absolutely no way to get this across the finish line, short of a massive compromise,” Huder said.

Compromise is exactly what Republicans avoided by kicking the can down the road in December. But the dynamic has not changed. As Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell noted on April 7, spending bills “cannot be done by one party alone.”

So the question remains whether Republicans will look to pick a fight on the spending bill to secure some of their policy priorities. If they keep the government open but don’t secure any new big ticket items in the process, can they still claim victory?

Based on the Republicans’ own vision of holding majorities in Congress and the White House, doing nothing would be “abject failure,” said David Lublin, a government professor at American University.

“If you pass a budget that essentially extends the current situation, that would be a big win for Democrats because that’s not what the Republicans wanted,” he said.

Republicans could ask for a number of things to be included in the government funding bill, but Democrats are unlikely to accept many of them.

Among the issues that could throw a wrench into bipartisan negotiations: increases in defense spending that aren’t offset by other cuts nor matched by increases for domestic programs, funding for Trump’s border wall proposal, and provisions prohibiting funds for so-called sanctuary cities or Planned Parenthood.

For the majority, decisions remain pending.

“All items are under negotiation and are not finalized,” said Jennifer Hing, spokeswoman for the House Appropriations majority. “We expect (to) have legislation ready prior to the deadline.”

Matthew Dennis, the panel’s minority spokesman, said Democrats are negotiating in good faith over a measure that can pass both the House and Senate.

“It seems likely that, like previous years, Democratic votes will be needed to enact appropriations law, so we continue to draw a hard line against poison pill riders like border wall construction, sanctuary cities, and Planned Parenthood,” he said.